Closure and a Castle
by ILikeCats1998
Summary: Lia goes on a trip to Scotland with Jennifer and Emma. Encountering an old ghost who got some advice from an even older one. (Wintergirls x Macbeth crossover).


I shivered despite my thick knit sweater, it was the last drizzly day of my family's trip to Scotland. My blistered heels throbbed with each step I took on the cobbled path. My step sister, Emma, and I had been roped into traipsing off to another tourist trap with my stepmom, Jennifer. The path up Dunsinane hill to get to the castle atop it seemed immense and endless. The gray Scottish sky cast a gloomy shade over everything. The trees were weighed down with over 1000 years of drizzly days and clammy nights, their leaves the same shade of green as the moss that crept silently up their bark.

"Race ya to the top!" challenged Emma cheerily, her brown eyes flashing with excitement as she surveyed the steep hill.

"Be careful!" Jennifer yelled automatically, it was practically her catch phrase, telling us to be careful. Emma's ponytail bobbed a few meters ahead of me as she ran over the damp cobblestones. My blisters protested as I ran to catch up. The castle Inverness towered at the top of the hill, the former home of a former king of Scotland. His ambitious ultimately brought around both his death, and his wife's. He killed his own king, one of his peers, and another nobleman's entire family. Emma was nearing the top of the hill, but I was running out of breath fast. I slowed down and inhaled deeply through my nose, the scent of damp leaves filled my nostrils. I wonder what it felt to be him. Could he see his own lies and justifications piling up around him like the ever growing pile of those he killed? When did he realize he was in past his depth? When did he realize he could no longer win?

"Lia?" said Jennifer as she laid her perfectly manicured hand on my shoulder, "Are you alright?" I jumped a bit, startled by her touch.

"I'm fine, just a bit out of breath," I laughed, "there's clearly a reason that Emma's the soccer player and I'm not." I smiled good naturedly at Jennifer and she took her hand off of my shoulder. Emma waved at us from the top of the hill, and the wind rustled the trees.

"They should'st go inside lief, I hast a humour that the rain will start presently," said Banquo to Cassie. They sat on a windowsill at Inverness, watching as Jennifer and Lia made their way up to where Emma was standing. Cassie swung her spindly legs, and twirled a piece of her long hay-like hair around a bony finger.

"Lia-Lia will be fine, she's gotten through things that are a lot worse than getting drizzled on," responded Cassie with a hint of bitterness in her voice. Below, Emma was giving Lia a hard time for losing the race and Jennifer was trying to round them up to go inside. As if to confirm Banquo's prediction, a flash of light illuminated the sky followed by the resounding clap of thunder in the distance. Emma and Lia looked up just as the rain began to fall. Cassie waved.

Droplets of water began to splash my cheeks as Emma and I looked up to where the lightning had been a second ago. A drop fell in my right eye. I blinked hard and looked back up. Cassie was sitting on a windowsill.

_Blink blink_

I looked up again. Why would Cassie be here of all places? She never had some deep desire to visit Scotland, that I know of at least. The rain pitter pattered against the windowpane, no Cassie to be seen. Emma grabbed my hand and we ran inside the castle to stay dry.

"I told thou so," chuckled Banquo with a wry smile.

"The rain goes through us anyway, so it doesn't matter," Cassie retorted, holding out her arm which the rain passed right through. Cassie sighed, sometimes, okay a lot of the time, she wished she was in Lia's position. Lia had realized that her life was worth more than a contest and the addiction that came with it. Cassie realized that too now, but Lia had realized it while still living, which in Cassie's mind made Lia the true winner here. Lia had stopped listening to what the demons inside her said, and even what Cassie had told her to do after a certain point. They both had just wanted to be thin, not even pretty, but just to be thin. The demons did that, but it came with a cost. Cassie's cost was death, Lia's cost would last her whole life, staying healthy was never easy. Cassie crossed her legs and looked out at the rolling moor. Banquo looked over at her, and as if reading her mind said;

"'tis strange;

And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

The instruments of darkness tell us truths,

Win us with honest trifles, to betray's"1

"Do you think I don't know that by now?" Cassie said bitterly. "Of course I know that, I've spent the past year realizing that and still I have nothing to show for it. You don't know what it's like to see your best friend do everything you couldn't do. To watch your best friend as her life becomes exactly what you had wanted."

"But I doth know that. Mine situation differs from yours in that i was kill'd and did not die from ailments within me, and that Macbeth was at fault whereas Lia is not. The owner of this castle, Macbeth, and I were once equal noblemen and comrades in war. I trust'd him above almost all others. Macbeth and I were given a prophecy, decrying his kingship and mine begetting of kings. Macbeth became king through foul means, but he still want'd more. He didn't want his reign to end, and was willing to doth aught to prolong his power. He kill'd me f'r his power, but he pay'd dearly f'r it in the end. This isn't exactly what is going on with Lia but know that I doth understand what it's like to watch someone close to thou accomplish what thou've always want'd."

"I'm sorry I went off at you, it just gets really hard s-s-ometimes," Cassie stuttered, turning to look at Banquo. Banquo placed his hand on her shoulder and Cassie sniffled softly. "I-I never knew it would be this difficult. I had made it, I had won, but I'm just as miserable now as I've ever been."

_Tap tap tap_

At the sudden sound on the windowpane, Banquo, startled, disappeared. Cassie turned herself around and abruptly fell onto the thickly carpeted floor of Lady Macbeth's room.

"Oh my gosh! Are you okay Cass? I didn't mean for you to fall, I thought you had seen me opening the window," exclaimed Lia as she knelt to help Cassie up.

"I'm fine" said Cassie with a smile as she sat up and pulled her legs together, criss-cross-applesauce.

"I thought I had seen you up on the windowsill and I guess I just haven't seen you in a few months so I wanted to make sure everything was okay."

"Everything is peachy keen, last week some maggots were hatched underneath my toenails, and I'm continually decaying," Cassie said sarcastically. Lia suppressed a laugh.

"So there's nothing serious prompting this visit?" inquired Lia.

"My toenail situation is serious! They're eating through my Chanel nail lacquer!" Cassie's voice wavered as she burst out laughing. Soon they were both wiping tears of laughter from their eyes and for a second it seemed like old times. Long before they were both frozen and only one thawed out again, long before the obsessions with collar bones the number of poppy seeds in a muffin, back when their friendship was simpler. Suddenly, Cassie sat straight up, remembering something. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "There actually is something I need to give you, it didn't prompt this visit but it made me think of you and it really helped me a while ago." Cassie stood up and began looking around the room for her bag. She crouched and yanked it out from under the bed. Out came sheets of paper, fortunes from fortune cookies, a few hair elastics, and finally a CD. "I found this CD when I woke up in the first week of being like this. I didn't listen to it at first because I didn't have any way to, but when I woke up in our old music teacher's car the other day, I took the opportunity to listen to it." Lia examined the CD, reading through its contents.

"Is there a specific song you want me to listen to first?"

"I doubt there's a CD player here Lia-Lia, can I just tell you the part I think you need to know?"

"Of course Cass! Go right ahead." Cassie took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

"It's never easy to accept that our bodies are fallible and flawed, you and I know that better than anyone.

We flirt with death every time we etch a new tally mark into our skin.

I know how to split my wrists to reveal a battlefield too

But the time has come for us to reclaim our bodies.

Our bodies deserve more than to be war-torn and collateral.

Lay your hands flat and feel the surface of scarred skin

I once touched a tree with charred limbs.

The stump was still breathing

But the tops were just ashy remains.

I wonder what it's like to come back from that

Because sometimes I feel forest fires erupting from my wrists

And the smoke signals sent out are the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

You are worth more than a waistline.

You are no less valuable as a size 16 than a size 4.

You are a goddamn tree stump with leaves sprouting out

Reborn."2 Cassie opened her eyes again, Lia was crying.

"Thank you so much for that Cassie." Lia gripped the CD tightly as she leaned in to give Cassie a hug. "It's been so hard sometimes to keep going but I know that that's going to help me a whole lot."

"Lia!" a muffled voice filtered through the thick wooden door.

"I"ve got to go, Cassie, but thank you so so much and I won't forget this." Lia briskly stepped towards the door. It creaked as she opened it. She looked back once more to where Cassie was standing, all that was left was a fortune that fell out of her bag.

"Lia!" called Jennifer.

"Coming!" yelled back Lia, shutting the door softly. The fortune on the floor read 'Never compare yourself to the best others can do, but to the best you can do.'

1

(Macbeth. 1.3.134-135)

2

Lambert, Mary. "I Know Girls (Body Love)." Letters Don't Talk. CD. Dungeness Records. 2012.


End file.
